Tywyn (; Welsh pronunciation: [ˈtəu̯ɨn]), formerly spelled Towyn, is a town, community, and seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd, Wales. It was previously in the historic county of Merionethshire. It is famous as the location of the Cadfan Stone, a stone cross with the earliest known example of written Welsh, and the home of the Talyllyn Railway. It has a population of 3264.
History of the name The name derives from the Welsh tywyn ('beach, seashore, sand-dune'). The place-name element tywyn is found in many other parts of Wales, most notably Towyn near Abergele and Porth Tywyn (Burry Port). In Middle Welsh, the spelling was generally Tywyn. In the Early Modern period, however, the spelling Towyn was common in Welsh in order to reflect a slight variation in pronunciation. That also came to be the usual spelling in English up to the latter part of the twentieth century. With the standardisation of the orthography of the Welsh language in the first part of the 20th century, the spelling Tywyn became increasingly common in all contexts. In 1967, members of Towyn Urban Council voted to request that the town be officially called Tywyn and in July 1967 this was accepted by Merionethshire County Council. Opponents of the change, however, campaigned against it and held an unofficial plebiscite in Tywyn on 25 May 1968. This plebiscite was not administered by an official body but was organised and financed by tradespeople and the campaign to revert to the spelling Towyn. Those who took part in the vote were asked to decide between Tywyn or Towyn – a large majority of those who voted favoured Towyn. As a result, Tywyn Urban Council (as it had become) requested that the decision to use Tywyn be revisited. In June 1969, this request was declined by Merionethshire County Council and thus the name has remained as Tywyn. The spelling Tywyn better reflects the name's history and the standard orthography of modern Welsh. Writing in 1967, Melville Richards, the noted toponymist and professor of Welsh at the University College of North Wales, Bangor stated that 'in modern Welsh the form should be uniformly "yw" and therefore, Tywyn is the most acceptable spelling for this name which means a strand or seashore'. In 1974, he further commented: 'Mae'r holl ymrafael ynglŷn â sillebu'r enw wedi codi am fod cryn ansicrwydd ac amrywio yn Gymraeg gynt rhwng y seiniau ow ac yw. Ond yn ddiddadl, Tywyn yw'r ffurf gywir' ('All of the disagreement about spelling the name arises from the historic uncertainty and variation in Welsh between the sounds ow and yw. But, without doubt, Tywyn is the correct form'). In Welsh, the town is sometimes referred to as Tywyn Meirionnydd. In origin, this usage probably refers to the cantref of Meirionnydd, but is now generally understood as referring to the historical county of the same name. In English, during the late nineteenth century and until the middle of the twentieth century, the town was sometimes called Towyn-on-Sea.
History Tywyn was the location of the first religious community administered by the Breton saint Cadfan upon his arrival in Gwynedd in the early 6th century, prior to his departure he founded a monastery on Bardsey Island off the Llŷn Peninsula. The church contains some early material (see below).
Location
The town's historic centre lies about a kilometre from the beach, around St Cadfan's Church. In the second half of the nineteenth century the town expanded considerably, mainly towards the sea. To the north of the town lie the reclaimed salt marshes of Morfa Tywyn and Morfa Gwyllt, beyond which lie the Broad Water lagoon and the mouth of the Afon Dysynni. To the north-east lie the rich farmland of Bro Dysynni and the village of Bryncrug, and to the east the hills of Craig y Barcud and Craig Fach Goch. To the south towards Aberdyfi is the mouth of the Afon Dyffryn Gwyn and Morfa Penllyn. The Tywyn coastal defence scheme, officially unveiled on 24 March 2011 by Jane Davidson (then Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing), provides a rock breakwater above the low-tide level, rock groynes, and rock revetment to protect 80 sea-front properties. The costs of this civil engineering project was £7.62M, shared between the Welsh Assembly Government (£4.135M) and the European Union's Regional Development Fund (£3.485M).
Language and demography Until the middle of the twentieth century, Welsh was the main language of Tywyn. The local dialect is of a northern type with some features that are shared with southern dialects. This combinations of features led one Victorian observer to state that three languages were spoken in the town: English, Welsh and 'Tywynaeg'. Victorian Tywyn was overwhelmingly Welsh-speaking with English being for most a language learnt in school rather than in the home or on the street. Indeed, in the town's British School in the 1860s, a 'Welsh stick' (a version of the Welsh Not) was used to punish children who were caught speaking Welsh in school. According to the 1901 and 1911 censuses, the percentages of Welsh speakers in the Towyn Urban District (as it then was) were 86.5% and 83.5% respectively, with 22.4% and 13.8% recorded as speaking only Welsh. Welsh remained the dominant language in Tywyn until the middle of the twentieth century. In his book Railway Adventure, L. T. C. Rolt recounts walking up the track of the Talyllyn Railway during the Second World War – on stopping to speak to two elderly railway workers a couple of miles from the town, he found that they didn't understand English. Increased tourism, however, and the impact of the military camps on the outskirts of the town had a significant impact on language use and English came to predominate. At the time of the 2001 census, 40.5% of the population were recorded as Welsh speakers. By the 2011 census this had decreased to 37.5%. In 2016, an Estyn inspection report of Ysgol Penybyryn, the town's primary school, noted that about 22% of the children at the school came from Welsh-speaking homes. Tywyn is now a significantly anglicised town, with the majority of its population (52.8%) having been born in England according to the 2011 census. Likewise, slightly more respondents claimed an English-only identity (35.0%) than a Welsh-only identity (33.7%).
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